The Ringer NFL Show - Betting Bad-Weather Games, Live Odds, and Week 8 Action

Episode Date: October 30, 2020

We recap the Falcons-Panthers 'Thursday Night Football' game before getting into how to bet games with bad weather and analyzing some of the juiciest matches to bet against this week, including Ravens-Steelers, Dolphins-Rams, Raiders-Browns, and 49ers-Seahawks. Hosts: Warren Sharp and Joe House Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

All right, my wagering wizards, my gambling gurus on today's episode of the Friday Ringer NFL show, it's Joe House and Warren Sharp here to break down bad weather football. Oh yeah, November is on the calendar. That means we're going to have some bad weather to factor in. We're looking at how to take advantage of it also this week. Markey, AFC North game, Pittsburgh and Balls, Baltimore, it's always a bloodbath. Of course, we have some more week eight games to wager on.

Stick around and check it out. Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Ringer NFL show. I'm Warren Sharp. It is Friday, and that means that I am joined by the one and only Joe House. Joe, Thursday night football. What did we think? Carolina against the Atlanta Falcons, talk to me, brother.

Sharpie, it's week eight, and I'm feeling great, brother. Although I have to confess, I had more exposure than I'm going to confess on the Carolina Panthers this evening. I thought this was perhaps a mismatch in class. I was wrong. And it turns out that the market was right because this line opened up at Panthers minus three. And it moved all the way down to two to one. And, you know, I think there was some sharp. driving that that market movement. And lo and behold, the Atlanta Falcons were the superior

team. And I believe it's because they had a superior game plan. And I believe that's because they played a bunch of college coaches this week. And what I mean by that is how much experience does Matt Rule or Joe Brady or Phil Snow or any of the coordinators that come over from Baylor have with a week that begins on Sunday night at midnight after they're done with their Sunday night getting ready for a Thursday NFL football game. That's the question that I posed to you, Sharpie. Well, that's a valid point. That's a valid question. Something interesting that maybe some people didn't fully capture. I obviously thought that they did a couple of very easy things that they could have done differently.

They did them incorrectly and properly in this game. But let's talk about the line movement, obviously, as you indicated. The line opened at three for Carolina and was bet all the way down with several different waves. And it took a wave down to like two and a half, people buying Atlanta plus three. And then there was a little bit of support for Carolina, went back to three. Then it took another wave down to two and a half to two. and it took a little bit more support for Carolina.

But the waves kept coming bigger and bigger on the Atlanta Falcons, dropping this all the way down to one, one and a half. And certainly there's a lot of ways to look at a game house, but one of the ways that I like to look at a game is you're first going to want to see how many times did you get close to the other team's red zone to score? How many times did you get close to the end zone? And the Carolina Panthers only had one trip inside Atlanta's red zone

and the Atlanta Falcons had six trips into the Carolina Panthers Red Zone. Now, they only scored twice because their Red Zone offense is a steaming hot mess of garbage. But the fact was they made a lot of trips down there. They probably should have scored more than 25 points. Well, you know why, and I tweeted this during the game, did Carolina get a single third down stop? I think Atlanta's numbers were something, you could fact check me on this. I think Atlanta converted third downs is something like 81 out of 81 times for 225% success.

You could fact check that, but I mean, there was not a single third down conversion that might have changed the flow of the game that the Panthers pulled off. Well, this is what I call like kind of a better's rose tinted glasses because actually the numbers show that the Atlanta Falcons were only three of nine on third down conversions. So they held the Panthers down to two of ten. So the Panthers were even worse on third down conversions. And the Panthers went for fourth down three different times. They only converted one of those three. And that allowed the Atlanta Falcons to outgain them by 100 yards about, 400 total yards for the Falcons here, 300 for the Carolina Panthers.

But it seemed like in your mind that the Atlanta Falcons just continue driving and continue driving. But the reality was this was a really good game with a few minor exceptions in terms of an interception. But Matt Ryan, despite the rain and despite all the other conditions, almost passed for 300 yards here. He didn't throw a touchdown. And in part house, that was because of the defense that we knew that the Carolina Panthers were going to play. So if you'll indulge me, I want to share a little bit about the zone rate that Carolina Panthers use here and why this was a recipe for disaster. As you kind of alluded to, what are the Carolina Panthers coaches doing? They were making a mistake by playing as much zone coverage as they did.

So entering the game on the season, the Carolina Panthers defense plays 83% snaps using zone coverage. and the NFL average is only 62%. They are the highest rate of zone coverage of any team in the NFL. Matt Ryan is really good against zone coverage. He is substantially worse against man coverage.

Here are the numbers on the season. 8.3 yards per attempt against zone, only 6.3 against man. 55% success against zone, only 37% success against man, and plus. 0.26 EPA against zone minus 0.12. against man. These are night and day. These aren't even close. He is much better against zone coverage.

Carolina, in their earlier game this season, which they beat the Atlanta Falcons 23 to 16, played 94% of dropbacks using zone coverage. They went way more zone than they normally do. Only twice did they play man. And one of those two times they got an interception. And they ended up winning the game. And so the thought process typically is in a lot of these rematches, if the team wins, they're going to do what they did the first game. They're going to do the same thing. They think that's the recipe for success. When in reality, this is not the way that you want to go up against Matt Ryan. He has Julio Jones back, who was not there in week five when they played earlier this year. And they just wiped the floor with this Carolina Panthers defense.

Yeah, I felt like Matt Ryan could. do whatever he wanted. One of the things that he did that helped keep drives alive, I mean, the Falcon started off the second half with three straight drives of at least 10 plays, and they scored on each of those drives, touchdown and two field goals. But Matt Ryan used his feet a little bit. Matt, he ice got out there and scrambling. There was huge amount of room out there for him to kind of roam. And it wasn't like he was looking fleet footed exactly, but there was so much green space out in front of them, he felt obliged, I know, to just get out there and do it.

My concern, really, in terms of the Panthers and their lack of success, had to do more with the offensive side of the ball. I mean, the Falcons left a lot of opportunities on the table, as you mentioned, and that's kind of been the Falcons way this season. But I was kind of more taken with the Panthers game plan. it looked like Teddy Bridgewater called, now, we will talk about his injury and what looked like a cheap shot. And I'm glad Charles Harrison, Charles Harris, I knew I was going to botch it. He deserved to get ejected. But before that, there was a lot of very short underneath kind of

throws out of the Carolina Panthers. And they tried to set up the run. And Mike Davis didn't get anything going at all in the first half. And the thing that we anticipated, at least I anticipated out of Carolina, DJ Moore, Robbie Anderson, Curtis Samuel, out on the edges, going down field against that Atlanta secondary, who everybody has blasted this year. That's not what Carolina did. No, they did not. But what they also didn't do was take advantage of one of the biggest weaknesses of the Atlanta Falcons, which they took advantage of in their first game, which is throwing the ball to you're running back out of the backfield. Do you know who led the team in receptions for the Panthers in their week five game?

It was Mike Davis, the running back. He had nine receptions. Only 10 targets. Caught nine of them, though. So very few drops, right? Like high percentage targets. He gained 60 yards, scored a receiving touchdown on these high percentage targets. And then tonight they threw the ball to him just twice.

He caught it once and gained a total of 11 yards. So they weren't going to the running back, and then they weren't having a lot of success working the other options. It seemed like the rain and the elements maybe got to Teddy a little bit more than it got to Matt Ryan, which is odd because Teddy plays outdoors now. Matt Ryan plays indoors. However, I guess in his career, Teddy played in New Orleans. That's a dome. That's a dome. So maybe he hasn't been in as many bad weather games.

with rain and wind, as you might think, even though he's playing outdoors now. But you're right. The Carolina Panthers' offense did not look as synced up. And they just did not have a lot of success, even though they gained 5.1 yards per carry on the ground with Mike Davis and had some success there. They just were not really consistent in any one phase of their offense. Yeah. And I'm now looking at Atlanta post the Dan Quinn era.

And we had a lot of fun in those first handful of weeks with Dan Quinn. I enjoyed betting against Dan Quinn every week. But now that he's in the rearview mirror, Atlanta all of a sudden, even with last week's botched ending, they had you put this in your in your Twitter. They could have knelt down and kicked a field goal two different times, three different times rather than running with Gurley and putting themselves in any job. Jeopardy whatsoever. They absolutely snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. But even with that, the three games post-Dan Quinn, am I crazier as Atlanta suddenly frisky? I mean, I now think I might be an Atlanta guy. Well, Atlanta definitely has been a bit frisky. And one of the reasons is they got some more

health to the defense. And it's one of the reasons why we liked Atlanta when they played the Vikings back in week six, it was because we felt like this team is going to get zapped with a little bit of energy here. And this team gets back some of the guys in their secondary, AJ Terrell and some of the other guys that were on the COVID list or injured were coming back. And so the defense had a little bit more weaponry on that side of the ball. The offense has always been fine. The only problem with the offense is in the red zone.

Otherwise, the offense has been fine and has been somewhat. fine for years. It hasn't been great. It hasn't been Kyle Shanahan levels, but you're not going to look around the league and say, oh my God, this is a bottom 10 offense. You know, the Atlanta Falcons offense is fine. It's played poorly

at times, but some of those are in like the very high leverage situations on some third downs or red zone situations. They can't really run the ball that well. And what's funny and ironic is that they're one of the worst teams running the football in the league. Yet Todd

Gurley leads the NFL and rushing touchdowns, which tells you all you need to know about, you know, how important it is to run the football. You mainly want to just be able to run at some inside of the red zone. Otherwise, you can move the ball between the 20s just with the quarterback and your wide receivers. And with Julio in the lineup, and I don't know, Calvin Ridley went out in this game, what, started the third quarter or something and never came back and hopefully his injury isn't severe. But you got a coach who cost him a game. against the Lions back in week seven, right, last week. But he's coaching for a head coaching position in the future. Rahim Morris, when he was the head coach, I believe of the Bucks, and the guy was

like 25 years old or something. I mean, maybe he's not that young, but he was one of the youngest coaches ever in NFL history when he got that job. And then he had to take a step back, right? Like, it didn't work out. He had to take a step back. Earnish Stripes is a defensive coach. And now he's back and he's got an opportunity to become. to prove that he could be an NFL coach and turn his franchise around for the rest of the year. So absolutely this is not a team that I wouldn't imagine is going to start trading off all its assets and packing itself in. They are still looking to build to the future.

But this coach is going to coach these guys hard, whoever is available to them. And I think that they could potentially be a live underdog in certain spots, although they play a very difficult schedule the rest of the way. If you want to get into that now, House, they play next week. the Denver Broncos who have the seventh best defense after the by week 10, which they have, their remaining opponents, the weakest defense that they're going to face besides the Raiders in week 12 is the Kansas City Chiefs. And they have the 13th best defense. They got two games against Tampa Bay's number one defense, two games against the Saints number 10 defense,

and a game against the Chargers number 12 defense. So this is not going to be easy for the Atlanta Falcons offense to be productive. They're going to need the defense to step up here over this last half of the season if they want to continue to record victories. That is a murderer's row. Well, I'm glad Rahim was like one play away from being three and oh since Dan Quinn bid us a do. But, you know, I think you said a minute ago, we've kind of seen all we need to know.

I think we've talked about all we need to know with this kickoff to week eight. Let's jump over and talk about where things are on this week eight slate. I agree. Let's dig in. house. Let's get into some of last week's numbers here. Sharpie, I'm so happy because we have week seven in the rearview mirror, which means we have week eight right in front of us.

And that means that we're halfway through the season. And we can really start separating the pre-tenders from the contenders. Power rankings mean something, wind differential, Pythagorean theorem, all that stuff. We're ready for it. So season to date, we now, have favorites at 45, 58, and two against a spread.

And if you reverse that, that means underdogs right now are 58, 45, and two against the spread. That's starting to produce kind of a healthy return. Home teams, 46, 57 and two against the spread. Home team advantage. There's no such thing. Underdogs, 36, 68 and one straight up. And the over unders now coming in at 53, 46. and six, I think according to the numbers you use.

I've seen also 53, 49, and 3. It just depends on what number you got at what point on the totals, whether you got a push or whether some of those fell into the loss column. But either way, overs only at 53 out of 105 games played. So we're continuing that downward trend, even though average points per game are still pretty strong. all the way up to almost 51 points in week seven. They're 50.6 points per game.

So my questions to you about these trends, the two that I'm interested in, in the first place, we are about to enter into a change in the weather. I mean, we're experiencing it here on the East Coast right now with some cooler weather in the forecast. and we're getting some tropical storm activity with wind and rain. And then I want to talk about underdogs as well. But let's first talk about what's going on with these wind totals

and how the weather might have an impact. Yeah, well, now is the time of the year. What are we going to fall backwards this week on the clocks? And you better start checking the weather forecast as well as you're getting ready to place some of your bets and just get an understanding as to what the marketplace is doing here because you do see different storm systems that move through. And some of them bring rain, some of them bring downpours, some of them bring light breezes

or strong winds and heavy gusts and others bring snow. And they change every week is going to be different. And if you're not accounting for weatherhouse as you are placing your bets, if you're not checking that forecast out at the beginning of the week on Monday morning and saying, okay, well, here's the long-term. forecast, you know, give me the seven day is what it looks like. These are where some of the systems are. And then starting to factor that in more confidently as that forecast gets more confident over the course of the week, then you're missing out on some key factors in handicapping.

And when you say key factors in handicapping, are we looking for opportunities to play unders? Is that the primary target here? Yeah. So, do, do you? Do you? It. So, Definitely any weather. The bookmakers, when they're setting these totals based on their computer models and the sides too, because this does factor into the sides. They are setting these things based on normal weather conditions, right? Normal conditions. They're not factoring in, oh, my God, it's going to be 30 mile per hour winds with gusts up to

45 miles per hour. Oh, my God, they're supposed to be a blizzard in this. There's very few times that they are factoring in that number when they're setting a spread or total on Sunday night at the conclusion of the prior weeks of the games that day, this total for the very next week. So they then quickly adjust as soon as they realize what the forecast actually are going to be. And in every case, weather is going to hurt a total. There are some cases, however, where there is an overreaction to weather. And you typically are going to find that on game day, hey, maybe there's a little bit of value in fading.

this move. But for the most part, you're talking about varying degrees of how much you should scale back your projections of both offenses, specifically the passing offenses in any of these conditions. And it varies based upon what that weather element is. I like it. I like it. Okay. So something for everybody to pay attention to. That's, you know, all of us squares out there reaching. That's Mr. Warren out there doing a little teaching. I have a question for you as it relates to these Underdogs. Warren, I'm interested in whether there's anything to make of, first of all, the season total now for Underdogs is 58, 45, and 2. So that's north of 55% on the season. And then more recently, over the past two weeks, Underdogs 18 and 10 against the spread, which is

strong. That would be great for your pocketbook if you just sat down and closed your eyes and bet all underdogs, which is not something we recommend. anybody do ever, but there is a little trend line occurring here. Is it indicative of something that's happening this season? Is it sustainable? What's your take on this underdog action? I think it just has a lot to do with the home field advantage and the sports book's not properly accounting for home field advantage. The road dogs in particular, you know, they hit 57% last year and I guess they're about 55% this year. And, and they were 54% in 2018.

So road dogs, it varies from season to season. There are some years where it's better and some years where it's worse. But for the past few years, road dogs have been back to being a profitable wagering experience if you want to look for the type of dog to take. And it's even more so now that home field advantage is less than the NFL. Now, this ultimately eventually should come back to the one. watermark, you know, like we should get back to a certain level, but it certainly should make you second guess laying points at home and make sure that you've got a lot of logic behind why you're

supporting this home favorite. Okay, well, this is helpful because I do have at least one road dog on my card here. I have a home favorite also, but we'll get to that soon enough. It is now time for some sharp points. All right, podcast people, this is the point in the show where you get to ask us, and by us, I mean, Brother Warren, a question on a particular angle here.

The email address, just to remind you, Sharp Points NFL at Gmail.com. That's S-H-A-R-P-O-N-T-S-N-F-L at G-Mil.com. And do like podcast listener, Sean, let's make sure that you tell us where you're from. We've got to give a shout out to your hometown. So this is podcast listener, Sean, from Tempe, Arizona.

He had a couple different questions, but the one I'm interested in focusing on with you this week has to do with live odds. It has to do with taking a look at the board. And he wants to know if you're a square and this is perfect coming from me. I'll just put it in my own voice. I'm square. I'm looking at live odds. how should I think about particular strategies for playing live odds and NFL football games? Well, live odds obviously provide some opportunities to hedge a bet sometimes or to get on a bet.

The issue is you don't have very much. There's a couple of drawbacks to live odds. Number one, you don't have much time to get down on these things and you can't get enough on them either. So the limits are very low. Secondly, you have to realize that every single thing that we watch on TV house has a delay. So if you are betting, if you have like direct TV or some other provider and you're running off of a satellite of some sort, you're not getting the live feed of that game.

And the sports books have wired in like you could run an antenna. You could do a bunch of different things to get the game a few seconds before. it actually airs. And I will tell you this for a fact because we look into this and this is, I mean, I do this for a living. So I know this stuff. Certain different broadcasting stations have more of a delay than others. So there are some that I watch and I can see that the delay is four seconds and others where the delay is 10 seconds. Now, the sports book, when they're adjusting their numbers for what these are, like we're going to be in an era soon where they are going to be giving and what's the next play, a runner or a pass and things of that nature. And you may be betting on a game. You haven't

seen the snap yet. And so you bet a certain way, but the book already knows the result of that. And in some cases, there's a lot of shady stuff that goes on with these books keeping the number up, putting a spinning wheel if you place the right bet so that they don't have to pay you and accepting your bet if it was the wrong bet. There's a lot of shady stuff that goes on with like in-gainting, game props and stuff like that. But let's not talk about the, let's just talk about the basic sides, right? I want the favorite or the dog and I'm betting them in market. Just know, number one, that the most recent plays that you are seeing probably is a little delay. Just know that you can't get down as much on in-game as you could pre-flop. But one of the key things, one of the benefits of

betting in-game is if you're watching, I would never advise betting in-game if you're not actually watching that game on TV, number one. Number two, betting on injuries, right? Like when you see a guy that is injured and now you think it's going to be a factor in the game, you can make an adjustment to your handicap based upon that and place a wager. If you think that, okay, only 20% of the game has occurred. And now this key component is out of the game, this wide receiver who might have been at 80% health, he's now limped off the field and they've announced he's going to be out.

Like, do I need to get off this bet? Do I need to hedge a little bit? You can do different things like that. One of the things that I will do within game, because I don't really like to do a lot because the deck is stacked against you for the most part. But one of the things that I do utilize is if there was a number that I couldn't get pre-flop, that now I can get post-flop because of a certain result early in the game, that's my opportunity. So let's pretend I'm in a situation where I like the underdog here.

And people were betting the favorite. and it was driving this line in a certain direction such that it was it was i was getting one point i was getting two points i wanted to get three points on this dog but i didn't want to buy from two and a half to three right because i don't advise buying on two numbers i advise buying off numbers so i'm not going to buy up to three i couldn't really get it and so i did nothing right that's the discipline of a pro sports bear you don't do anything but now all of a sudden the opponent goes down the favorite and scores on their first possession. And now the in-game number is four and a half.

Now I can take the underdog plus four and a half. Maybe the in-game number is three and a half, right? Whatever the number is, there is going to be an adjustment when that favorite team scores on its opening drive. Boom, I can take the dog and get over the field goal and I don't have to pay anything at all in terms of juice to do so. So that's one situation where I might react to an early score and it will help the in-game number and I'll take advantage of that.

But for the most part, there's a lot of things that you have to consider that you probably aren't considering when you're betting these in-game lines. Yeah, the props is something I just absolutely stay away from because I know that I'm way too stupid to get anywhere near anything with in-game props. But what I will do, what I have done, what I did this past weekend, is look at halftime. And then if a game goes into overtime, I look at overtime also. And in both of those circumstances, most of the time I am focused on the. the total. I'm playing a over under rather than a side because I don't have a good enough feel in real time for whether there's value on how the numbers are jumping around on the side. My preference is, you know, just looking at what we experience in the first half and whether

the total that's projected out there feels viable or not based on. Are you typically betting overs in that sense or are you betting unders? How are you? Bending the total. Almost universally unders. Okay. So and you're doing, give me your logic on how you're betting the unders. Like what do you have to see to make yourself want to trigger to bet an in-game under?

Or half time under, rather. The scoring rate in the first half, how much of that, um, is attributable to what I would characterize as fluky plays turnovers, where there was short field and somebody was able to, to score.

And it was, and, and, and the total exceeds what the two defenses, coming into the game, you know, kind of an understanding of what the two defenses might permit. If there is something a skewing because of an unexpected, a special teams score or a turnover score, short field score, then I'd like an under in that position. I played the Seattle, Arizona game is a decent example. At halftime, I was able to get under 72 and a half.

And I don't recall what the number was, but they were. scoring on each other just, you know, insane. They, nobody could stop the other one. And it felt like it was not sustainable. And, and at halftime, it looked like 72 and a half was, was, was a decent play. Um, it got very close towards the end because it went into overtime. And if one, one of the teams that scored a touchdown in overtime, I would have lost that bet.

But I also at overtime, and this is not something I suggest anybody do, I hate bet, uh, on the Cardinals to, win that game outright at plus 165 because I was so dismayed by what Seattle did in the fourth quarter of that game. And I really felt like they were accomplices in that in that defeat on Sunday night. So let me let me tell you one thing about the second half numbers on these total. So you just, I just got the score here. So you took the Seahawks Arizona Cardinals game. And there were 44 points scored in the first half of that game. And the total, you bet under 72 and a half. So you're basically saying that the second half number was around 28, 28 and a half. You must have taken, it was under 28 and a

half. So you could bet the 72 and a half. Now, what I will tell you is that an interesting element to this, and you can look at this at any point in time throughout the course of the week, look at where these totals close, most sports books are not really deviating that far from what that first half point total is going to be for the second half total that they post. So the second half total on that game, if you do the math, the full game total was around 56 points. Just divide that by two. You get 28 points. So the second half number, they're not artificially inflating that second half number because there was a lot of fluky scoring in the first half. What they're doing is they're just putting a second half number, which is comparable to what it would have been before the game

even started. And so in some cases, like, you may see a game that has very little scoring in the first half. And you say, oh, well, I'll go over in the second half number because, you know, they'll at least score 40 total points in this game. But you'll find that the second half number is going to be about what the first half total was, not the total point scored, but the pregame total for what the first half was. So really where you're going to get value, if you think there's a lot of flukiness going on is by betting an in-game under in the middle of the first half after you've seen some of this flukiness rather than a half-time total. But I will never say that for the majority of time in the majority of games, that betting a second half under is probably the right play.

You're probably going to hit just across the board. You're going to hit above 50%. If you you literally bet every single second half total under because inevitably in the second half of games this is when you see coaches making decisions based upon the scoreboard and a lot of times the better team which has the lead and you need them to score because they've got the best offense they'll take their foot off the gas in the second half if they've got a nice lead and so you're not going to get as much out of them and you're going to be hoping that the worst team with the worse offense is going to start scoring to catch back up in a game. And more often than not, that is not going to happen, which is why you're going to see

a plus EV on betting second half unders. Granted, you have to pick and choose your spots. But generally speaking, that's where you're going to make money. Yeah, I love it. Well, speaking of making money, what a slate of games this week. It felt like when I sort of sized up the card, there is one standout marquee game for sure. but there are a bunch of juicy second tier games on the dance card. And I mean, you know, far and away, the marquee game is, of course, Baltimore, Pittsburgh,

because we have, you know, two undefeated teams and division rivals and that storied rivalry between those two teams. But there's some other, like, really fun games on this dance, dance card. San Francisco, Seattle feels pretty juicy to me. I am excited for, believe it or not, the Rams at Miami. And, you know, Raiders Cleveland has some interesting angles to it as well. But let's go ahead and jump into the marquee game. Baltimore is favored by three and a half at home against Pittsburgh.

I know that I personally like Baltimore in this spot. We correctly, well, I'll say I correctly, because I don't, you know, you just give this the smart, the sharp pointers for why one side versus another makes sense. I actually bet the Pittsburgh Steelers last week. And they jumped out to a nice lead in the first half. And then they held on for dear life. And it took a Gaskowski missed field goal at the end of the game for Pittsburgh to win and cover. and that whole second half, I just was very anxious watching it.

I did not enjoy that. Pittsburgh up against a Baltimore team now that's very well rested. And Pittsburgh, that game last week against Tennessee was tough. I mean, that was like two legit contenders for the AFC Conference Championship game. I like Pittsburgh.

I mean, I like Baltimore a lot in this position mainly just because of the buy. Well, yeah, they're great off of a buy. If you look at Baltimore, this is a crazy little stat. The Ravens are 18 and 5 under John Harbaugh when they have over seven days of rest at any point in time. And they're 16 and 7 ATS. That's 70% in those games.

They're 4-0 straight up and 3-1 against the spread the last two years. John Harbaugh is a great coach in these situations. And part of me is wondering, you know, the Ravens were the favorites in this division before the start of the season. And they were one of the favorites to make it to the Super Bowl. And they have Super Bowl aspirations. This team had a bad taste in their mouth after what happened in the playoffs last year. They were fired up to start this season. They were favored, if we remember, by three points at home against the Kansas City Chiefs.

and they laid an egg. And they aren't playing as well as they played last year. And all of these things are real life motivating factors for this team to get back on track and to use the by week to come out strong. And they see the Pittsburgh Steelers. And they see that the Steelers are 6 and 0. This is like the older brother that they hate, that they know they're better than right now, but they got to knock this guy down a peg because they cannot afford.

to lose at home to the Pittsburgh Steelers, that would drop them two games and now technically three games behind the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC, right? Because the Kansas City, well, actually, no, I take that back. That would drop them two games behind the Kansas City Chiefs because Kansas City fortunately lost. And at Baltimore right now knows that if they beat the Steelers in this game and they can somehow get one more win than Kansas City has over the rest of the season, they will be the number one seed. But if Baltimore drops this game and allows Pittsburgh to go to 7 and 0,

and then Kansas City continues this ride with Baltimore having two losses, it's going to be very hard for them to get the home field advantage in this postseason. We talked about on the show last week how the Steelers were supremely pissed off of the Tennessee Titans for

costing them their buy week. And they had two weeks to prepare for the Titans. And I don't mean they had a buy with two weeks to prepare. I literally mean they had a full week of practice to prepare for the Titans thinking they were going to play them that week. The game got canceled. Then last week they had a full week of practice again to prepare for the Titans, two real weeks that never happens in the NFL. And I know you say that they held on for Deer Life and they really did, but they were by far the right side in that game. You did make the right

wager. I tease the Steelers. The Steelers got into the Red Zone five times. They scored three touchdowns. They were minus three in turnovers. A team that's minus three. three in turnovers on the road should very infrequently win that game. We're talking about hardly ever should they win that game. They took their foot off the gas that was ill-advised in the second half, almost cost them. But the bottom line was they were the superior team over the Titans. It should never come down to that missed field goal late. But that was the big moment for them to get that win. I think that this is a potential, even though it's a Baltimore Ravens team that they hate and they want to try to beat, that we're going to see the Ravens come out with more

juice here. But what my interesting question mark is, how are these two defenses going to play each offense? It's fascinating the way that the chess match is going to occur here between these defensive coordinators. I have wondered, I suggested this last year, why the Baltimore Ravens don't let Lamar Jackson pass the ball a little bit more when the box is loaded. And this season so far, it hasn't been close. When they are going up against a six-man box, which is very few defenders in the box, that's less than average, this team needs to be going more run heavy. And yet they're down at 22% run. And when the box is loaded, they're up at 65% run, which is above the NFL average. They need to shift and throw the ball more when the box is loaded and run the ball more

when the box is light. And the numbers bear that out too when you look at their effectiveness. When the box is loaded, forget quarterback runs. Their running backs are averaging six yards per carry when they're only six or fewer men in the box. But when the box has eight or more men, they're averaging only 4.2 yards per carry. Their success rate is better. Their EPA is better against boxes that are light. And I'm going to be fascinating to see what they do against the Steelers here. Both of these defenses are aggressive. Both of them like to blitz. But House, I don't know what your take is on what you think this Steelers offense is going to do because the Ravens love to blitz these guys, but the Steelers' offense is getting rid of the ball so quickly out of Ben Rothesberger's

hands that that blitz may not hit home. And so we're looking to see Ken Baltimore is secondary slow these receivers down after the catch because that's where the Steelers are beating people. It's quick reads from Ben, ball out of his hand, doesn't get pressured and run after the catch, yards after the catch for these receivers. Do you think Baltimore and Wink Martindale's defense is built to defend against that style of offense? Well, I just love the observation that you made when we started talking about this, which is with extra time, Baltimore game plan-wise, is superior. And so, you know, my inclination. This burned me last week. I thought Seattle would come in with a game plan, particularly for Arizona,

that would have Seattle with their league worse and a historically bad yards against defense, actually game plan properly for Arizona. Maybe have somebody watching Kyler Murray. I don't know. It feels like, you know, watching those games all season long with Arizona. A couple eyes on Kyler Murray might make sense. but Baltimore I trust. I trust that coaching staff, I trust Martin Dale. I believe that they will indeed have some schemes in mind for how quickly Ben gets rid of the ball. And I, you know,

there is a little bit of Baltimore's had their ticket a little bit, right? Now, they've won the last three matchups with the Steelers. And I, you know, Big Ben putting the ball out there a little bit. Now, you know, turnovers always have a type of luck associated with them, but he was a little, little loose with the ball. And I also think one of the ways that Baltimore could be effective in mitigating the speed of the Steelers receivers is to keep them off the football field. And I do think that there is something to the fact that Lamar has been hurt since the Washington game.

I do think he had a ding to his knee, and he hasn't run very, he didn't run very much in the two games after that. And his passing efficiency was down a little bit as well. I think this extended by for Baltimore will do wonders for his overall health and that they're going to come out ready to kick ass. Yeah, I think this game is really tough. I would say only this, that if you go back in history, and this is one of those rival that you almost sort of have to go back in history. Like since 2015, the Ravens have won only one game in kind of like a blowout fashion over

Ben Rothesberger. And that was a game that they were only leading by three points entering the fourth quarter. It was week four of 2018. And they scored nine unanswered in the fourth quarter. Like every single one of these games seems to be pretty tight entering the fourth quarter. You have to be the team that wins the fourth quarter. That's my take. I don't think that we're going to see either of the.

these teams jump out to big leads early. I great point on Lamar Jackson. I definitely think that his health should be utilized by the Ravens to try to get him to run more. And I'm interested to see what changes the Ravens and tweaks the Ravens have made during their by week, extra time, try to figure out something to do to make their offense a little bit more successful because it has been a little bit disappointing seeing this offense compared to what we saw last season. They've got to try to do some different things. I hope it's allowing them to, throw the ball more against loaded boxes and run against heavier boxes, but we'll see on Sunday. Well, I have to ask you a question based on the observation you shared with us about

how close these games are and that it's a fourth quarter kind of determinant in who wins these games. Baltimore's sitting there at three and a half. I know you've told me not to do this, but I really want to buy them down to three. I really would like the hook. I would like to buy Baltimore down to three. Are you going to tell me not to do it again this week? No, so I don't mind on a three or a seven buying on to the number. What I will never do is buy to a number. So I'm not going to buy from two and a half up to three. But if it's three and a half and I can buy down to three, that's when I'd be looking to do it. And in this game, let's see what some of the, the Steelers are taking a little bit of the majority of the action here. And this game

opened with the Ravens up at favorites of five and a half to six points at some spots, and now is down to three and a half. I would be shocked if this thing got two, three naturally. So if you do have the opportunity to get it from three and a half down to three, I would not dissuade you from doing that in this particular game house. I will say that I would be shocked if it got to three naturally. But that's the only logical thing you could do is hold out hope and hope that it gets there. But with it opening significantly higher than this, I just don't know that it's going to get all the way down to three. It would take a lot of money to get down to three. And then you're going to be at a situation where you got to ask yourself, it must have taken a lot to

get it down to this three. And it's just sitting at three. That must be a pretty big position on Pittsburgh. Do I really want to buck that with my information? So that's one thought. Well, I appreciate that because if it is still three and a half Sunday morning, buying that point. I like Baltimore as the side in this game. And I am going to play on it because I like to play on the juiciest game of the day. And that's that's the one. It's our marquee game, Sharpie. And I have, I have unlikely candidate as my second most interesting game of the week. But anytime you give me a chance to look, get a full dose of Tua, I'm tingley for Tua. The L.A. Rams are favored by three and a half points. They're going to mine.

on a short week. I actually like the dolphins here. The Dolphins defense is not terrible. They've been in the top five an opponent points per play. Over the last three games, there are like sixth an opponent yards per play. They're in the top five, an opponent third down conversion.

The Dolphins defense might have a little juvenation. I kind of like the dolphin's side here. what do you think about this game i think this game there's a number of factors going on here big picture number one you've got the insertion of tua and how much is that changed this dolphins team they say it's not changing them very much they're saying that they've been practicing with tua taking the second qb reps and if there's a bootleg to the right tua on his wristband is bootlegging to the left and so the offensive line has been practicing this throughout the season anyway so it's not that big of a deal. However, it is going to require some level of an adjustment.

And this is why this was the only week that they could have made this change, in my opinion, was during the buy week, is to be able to make this adjustment. Now, the other factor here is how good is Tua against the zone? And I say that because the Rams use a lot more zone than the NFL average, about 6% more zone than the NFL average. The average is around like 62% zone defense and they're up at like 68%. And why that's a factor is because Ryan Fitzpatrick's Miami Dolphins absolutely crushed zone. They had 8.6 yards per attempt against zone, only 6.8 against man. They had 62% success against zone, only 52% against man. They had plus point 21 EPA against zone, only negative. 0.04 EPA against man. So they were much better against zone, but is to a better

against zone. That's what we don't know yet. We're not sure if this is going to be something Tua is going to be good at because some quarterbacks are better against man and some are better against zone. But if Tua is good against zone, it's going to be a good matchup for the dolphins because of that. Second thing you've got here is you got the travel, right? I mean, look, what is the Rams offense, the Rams team in general, if not for frequent flyers right now? Going back and forth from the east coast to the west coast over and over and over, over, over the. the course of the season. It was one of the big factors that led to the great advice to take the Niners a couple weeks ago. And that did indeed pay dividends. It's their fourth

Eastern time zone game already this year. And none of them were back to back, unfortunately, like they couldn't stay out on the East Coast because they had to go back and forth due to the COVID thing between weeks two and week three between the Philly game and the Buffalo game. So they had the Washington game at week five and they were in California for two straight weeks. all the way back for an early kick on the East Coast down in Miami. The heat of Miami, that's another factor here and what Miami decides to do. But one of the factors that is pretty neat about this game is, let's think back a couple of years' house to the 2018 season when Sean McVeigh's team went to the Super Bowl. And they were to talk of the town,

they went to the Super Bowl. And who did they play in the Super Bowl? Do you remember who they played that year? I do not. The New England Patriots. Oh. And do you remember how shitty that game was and how boring that game was? Yes. And how terrible the first half of that game was. Right. And how unexciting that game was.

Of course. I had the Patriots and the under in that game. Do you know who made that in part very unexciting and unattractive and not very fun to watch? Sean McVeigh. Going up against Brian Flores and the defense of the New England Patriots. And do you know who the coach and the defensive mastermind? is down now in Miami. It's Brian Flores. So different pieces, different players, but Brian Flores is in Miami and he and Belichick came up with the mastermind game plan to completely and utterly

just decimate and slow down this Rams team that had been a juggernaut and couldn't suddenly do anything whatsoever. So I think that the Rams are going to have more success, obviously, in this game, Miami is not built strongly enough to do all the things that the Patriots were able to do. But if we can get a game effort out of Tua, and he plays well and he doesn't get rattled, and the other thing to me, House, and this is kind of an interesting note, I'll take it a little bit of time to discuss this game, but I think it's pretty interesting, is that a lot of people are going to look at the overall numbers as to what the Miami Dolphins offense did. does in terms of run rate and say, oh, well, this team, you know, they run the ball a fair amount.

But the reality is over 80 yards of the field, this is one of the most pass-heavy teams in the league. They are the third most pass-heavy teams on early downs outside of the red zone to start games. They are 61% pass, and those passes are very efficient. 9.9 yards per attempt, 62% success rate. Their runs are very inefficient. 3.4 yards per carry, 42% success rate, both well below average. The way that this team has been playing in the first half of games is a pass-first offense. And if they all of a sudden switch that just because two is in there now and say,

oh, well, let's just run the ball a little bit more. We don't want them taking this many dropbacks. That is going to substantially hurt their overall efficiency because that run game is not jazzed up enough to be able to get yards and produce. like the passing attack, though. So every time they move from one pass to a run play because two is the quarterback is minus EV for this Dolphins offense. I don't know what they're going to do.

I don't know what Grandpa Chan is going to pull out here. Will he decide, Grandpa Gaily? Will he decide to run the ball more? Will he keep the pass rate the same? My hope, my desire is that the dolphins stick with what got them here, insert Tua, call the plays that are to a show. strengths, but don't change your philosophy. Don't try to, quote, unquote, protect Tua by running more. That's only going to hurt him in the long run. That's only going to put more third down situations

that are obvious passing downs on his plate that he then has to navigate. Let him pass the ball against a defense that could be playing the run against the defense. If you're the Rams, what are you going to do? Like, let's think logically here about what the Rams defense quarter is going to do. You think this Rams defense quarter is like, oh, crap, now they got Tua. We got to sit back and play pass. We can't let him beat us over the top. We got to, we got to, like, let them run if they want to. We've got to make sure that we defend to it. No, they're going to say, we're going to defend the run. We're going to try to stop the run. We're going to force this rookie who's off of a hip injury, who hasn't played in a year, basically. We're going to make

this guy try to beat us, right? So you can't play into that as you're the Dolphins' offensive coordinator and call a lot of run plays. You have to keep that same rate of passing. If they do, I think the dolphins could be a very live underdog here. Oh, I love it so much. So the money lines plus 165. I'm going to do Miami with the three and a half points, and I'm going to put a tiny taste on the money line as well because you have instructed us if you're going to play an underdog,

go ahead and put a tiny taste on the money line as well. And, you know, there is a lot of contradistinction, I mean, counter evidence for the Rams that supports them. Because McBay is such a good coach. I mean, they're there. great on the road seven and two against a spread and straight up

on Eastern Time Zone games. So what I see here? In their last 10 games on the East Coast, eight and two straight up and against the spread. I mean, that's some pretty good stuff. Yeah, no, the Rams, the Rams have been good in this spot historically. What you're hoping for is that the travel compounds

and piles up here. This is their last game before by, I believe. So you're hoping that their travel compounds here, you're hoping that the heat wears on them. You're hoping that Brian Flores cook something up here to slow this team down. And you're hoping that the dolphins, A, have figured out how to play left-handed, literally, and B, don't go run heavy. And so there's a lot of, sometimes there's games house where it's like a lot of narrative

street. Like, oh, well, this team's more motivated and this angle and this, you know, like, and you're trying to build in these like little narratives if you're trying to handicap a game. this is less narrative and more conjecture and speculation you know this is more like okay well i hope that tua playing left hand is not going to impact this team and so when you're betting on the dolphins you are basically speculating that a lot of these things are going to occur in your favor or at least not hurt you and we don't know it's it's a gamble it's a real live gamble here and you're just hoping that more of the things that you think as you're handicapping this game are going to come

to reality because we haven't seen this guy before in an NFL game. And there's a lot that's going to be decided out on the football field Sunday. All right. Well, that's going to be fascinating. I have another game on the dance card that I am particularly fascinated by also. And that is the Las Vegas Raiders, who I think have quietly, somewhat under the radar, kind of secretly been a pretty damn good football team through the first seven games.

season. They're getting points at Cleveland after a really competitive game. And this is really the reason why this game caught my interest. I thought they were so competitive with Tampa. And I really hold Tampa in high regard. I think they're one of the best teams in the NFL, easily one of the top five and all the DVOA stuff bears it out in terms of defense. And I thought the Raiders were able to move the ball pretty decently. They were down four. And, points in the fourth quarter before things, you know, went awry. And the really compelling thing to me that has me on the Raiders this week is they were in complete disarray on the offensive line entering week seven. They had a, uh, uh, Trent Brown tested positive with COVID and his backup was

inactive. And then all of the, uh, remainder of the Raiders offensive line were not cleared to play until Sunday morning and they were self-quarantining. And then another one of their guys, Sam Young had a knee injury. And then another one of their guys was ejected in the third quarter. With all of that in their face, the Raiders still, I thought, from what I saw of that game,

were not like legions behind Tampa in terms of quality or game plan, in terms of how competitive they are. They're sixth in offensive DVO, and eighth in early down success rate. So I think, you know, going from that Tampa defense to the Browns defense, the Browns gave up 34 points and 470 yards to the Bengals last week, I kind of think there's an opportunity to get down on the Raiders here.

What do you think? I don't disagree with one thing that you said about the Raiders, their house. It was a terrible spot, obviously, for them last week with the offensive line not being there. and they were given the Tampa Bay Bucks a little bit of a battle early on in that game. It was a game off of the by. They had a couple weeks to think about it, prepare for it.

And then, of course, that happened. And I think it really set them back a little bit. The one thing about this game that is going to be very fascinating, that is going to be the number one factor in who is able to get this cover, is how the teams handle the inevitable wind that's going to come here. So this is, we talked about at the top. Now let's dig deeper into weather factors. And in this particular game, the weather factor is wind. Looking right now, and wind is something that is prone to change. It's subject to change because it may get stronger, it may get lighter. You can't really go hardcore on it yet. But right now we're forecasting approximately 26 to 27 mile power winds with gusts approximately 37 miles per hour. That information and that information alone is what has caused this total to drop. This total was sitting upwards of 55 and a half points.

And it is currently significantly lower than that. And right now you are seeing this total sitting at 51. That is a four and a half point move from 55 and a half down to 51. And it's barely Thursday evening right now. the limits haven't yet risen at most of these sports books to as far as they're going to get once Friday rolls around, the limits rise again and more money can get down on these games. I definitely anticipate this game closing below 51, and it is entirely due to the wind that is being forecast. And if the wind doesn't happen, right, if we get to Sunday and there is no wind,

this total is going to get back up. But if there is wind, everybody who bet the under is going to be in a good position because they're going to get a better number than what it closes at. The issue with wind is it's harder for opposing officers to throw the ball down the field. It causes them to have to run the football more often, which causes more time to come off the clock in between plays because there's less clock stoppages due to incompletions. There's fewer yards gained on certain plays because a pass play will gain more yards than a run play will. And as a result, we see fewer opportunities.

to score points when there's enough wind that's in fact affecting the total. Now, the other thing that you have to look at when we're talking about wind is two things. Who has the better rushing matchup here? Team A's offense versus Team B's defense versus the other team's offense versus your own team's defense. And in this case, you know, we see the Cleveland Browns have one of the better rushing attacks in the NFL. They have the eighth best rushing attack in the NFL.

the Raiders only have the 27th best rushing attack in the NFL. And the Browns run defense is a little bit better than the Raiders run defense. So if wind is a factor, it's going to favor the Cleveland Browns a little bit on the ground in the ground game with what they're able to do. But the other thing that it's going to do is it's going to cause these quarterbacks when they do pass the ball, probably to throw the ball a little bit closer to the line of scrimmage. Particularly when they're targeting wide receivers, I went and looked at early down passes to wide receivers within five yards of line of scrimmage.

So no deeper than five yards downfield if you're throwing short passes to your wide receivers, whether it's behind the line of scrimmage or up to five yards in front of the line of scrimmage, how well is your offense clicking? And the Raiders are averaging a 76% success rate, 6.9 yards per attempt and plus 0.25 EPA on these short passes to wide receivers. That's third best in the NFL. The Brown's offense is down at 50% success, 5.4 yards per attempt and minus 0.04 EPA. Those numbers are all well below average.

Well below average. The Raiders defense is also surprisingly really good against these short passes, whereas the Brown's defense is actually allowing above average production. So while the Browns may have the advantage on the ground, the Raiders have the advantage with this short passing attack. So those are some factors to consider when you're looking at this game. I don't necessarily dislike the game for the Raiders

just because of the wind. I think this game is going to be really competitive. And I do think that a lot of people probably are overvaluing the Bengals and what the Browns did against them last week throwing up 37 points on the scoreboard there. I'm just curious to see. We've only seen two games house where the Browns have played competent offenses, balanced

offenses. And I just mentioned how the Raiders offense isn't great at running the football. But they still are a very good offense. They're the ninth best in the NFL. Technically speaking, this is the best offense that the Browns defense will have faced all season long. The two offenses that they played that were better than bottom 10 because they played a ton of bottom 10 offenses.

We're talking about two games against the Bengals, the Cowboys, the Colts, the Washington football team. The two teams that they played with above average offenses were the Ravens and the Steelers, and those teams won by scores of 38 to 6 and 38 to 7. So I'm not suggesting that the Raiders have a defense close to what the Steelers or the Ravens have. They're not going to hold the Browns to six or seven points here, but I do think that the Raiders should be able to put up some points even despite the win.

and that's going to go a long way towards getting this cover. Yeah, that's what I'm after. That's the kind of statistical analysis I've come to enjoy and expect here on the Ringer NFL Friday broadcast with the Sharp himself, Warren Sharp. Feel free, producer, Craig, to take that and use it for any kind of promotion you want. But Sharpie, that was awesome, and I love it. And I'm on the Raiders. And not one thing that you said is taking me off. we didn't even mention ODB. ODB obviously hurts Cleveland, but if this wind impact, you know, the lake effects of these crazy winds occurs there in Cleveland, then ODB's impact might have been somewhat mitigated. Anyways, let's move on to, I have one game that I just want to very briefly talk about because I'm still mad at Seattle. I had to go ahead and have this opportunity to vent. San Francisco is at Seattle this week.

San Francisco, Seattle's favored by three, kind of normal Seattle home field advantage. The angle I'm interested in is the over at 53 and a half. That's the only thing that I would play on this game. But I'm still not over what I regard as a somewhat unconscionable collapse by Seattle at the end of that game down in Arizona last week. They had that game won a dozen different ways. like to me and they were active accomplices in their own defeat through through missteps with the unsportsmanlike conduct penalty through play calling that Russell his own self might have had a hand in especially on the game defining last drive where they needed two first downs to

basically win the game by three and weren't able to get it and they had three runs by Carlos Hyde. Now, the very last play, the third down play, they had two offensive linemen run into each other, and they previously had success on that play. But I just still have this sour taste in my mouth around Seattle because one of the things going into last week that we were anticipating, I was anticipating, was the idea that their defense might have been somewhat improved off of the buy. Instead, they continue with the work. defense in the second worst defense in the league in yards per game. Oh no, no. I'm sorry, by far the worst. By far the worst. The Falcons are 31st and Seattle is 32nd. They're on pace

to shatter the NFL record for most yards allowed in a season at over 479 yards a game. And that's 7,667,667 yards over 16 games. the current holders of that record are the 2012 Saints who allowed 7,042 yards. So Seattle is on an incredible pace here. I have been very impressed, just speaking of the over, by what San Francisco has done on offense, Jimmy G. got himself healthy after his benching immediately after their buy week. And, you know, they just have running back by committee. And every week, it's a new running back that goes out and kicks ass.

That's just a testament to Shanahan. And I like very much the over here because Russell, you know Russell's going to cook. And with what Seattle, Seattle can't stop anybody, doesn't stop anybody. So over 53 and a half is my feel on this game. Well, first of all, let's talk a little bit about this Seattle team and how they never really are able because you were frustrated about how they kind of let the Red Cardinals back in that game. I mean, Seattle has played how since it started.

of the 2019 season, 24 games. And only two of them, even though they've won 17 of 24, only two did they win by more than one score. Every single game with this team is close in some capacity. Every single game that they're winning allows the, with one play, the other team could tie or take the lead in the fourth quarter. It's why our guy, Kevin Clark, the ringer's own beloved Kevin Clark, his tweet that he put out, I don't know, it's two years old now.

Seattle never plays in a normal game and that there are no normal games for Seattle. It's absolutely true. Right. I 100% agree. And so I'm looking back on this San Francisco 49ers defense. And I just, I do see some opportunities here for Seattle's offense. And and, but that being said, and I'm going to go through a couple of them. I just don't know how Seattle's defense is going to do against Jimmy G.

in this 49ers offense. There's nothing about them that really speaks to me that you're going to shut this 49ers team down. But let's talk about Seattle's offense first. And to do that, I want to talk about the 49ers defense because of this matchup. San Francisco's defense has played the second easiest schedule of opposing quarterbacks. They've played the third easiest schedule of opposing offenses in general. We look at what they did last week against the Patriots.

I mean, that was not a normal Patriots offense. I don't know what that was out on the football field, but that was not normal. Then you look at the game against the Rams. We took the 49ers. We like the 49ers in that game. Perfect spot. Everybody thinks they suck. They're going to come in.

The Rams are hot. Boom. We love the 49ers here, right? Well, the 49ers, even with like a limping around Jimmy G, we're able to put up enough points on this Rams defense. But I will just be honest because you've got to be honest when you're betting on games to be able to understand results. The Rams easily could have scored more than 16 points in that game.

Jared Goff was just missing dudes left and right. Jared Goff was atrocious in that game. He was not performing well whatsoever. There were guys that were open. He's throwing it down the field, you know, five yards short of a guy who's just standing there and there was no pressure on golf. He was sailing it over people's heads. Goff could have scored more in that game against this 49ers defense.

So last couple of games really were not reflective of really the caliber of this 49ers defense. The next game prior to that, they looked. allowed 43 points to the Miami Dolphins. Now, you know, I'm not suggesting that the Seahawks are going to put up 43, although they could. They put up 34 last week against the Arizona Cardinals defense. But I just think that this 49ers defense is a little bit worse than what we think that it is. And I think that there is obvious advantages for Seattle. How much they continue, though, to rely on the quarterback is going to be important because they've got a health situation at running back, and they can't just hand the ball off to the backup of the backup

of the backup at running back and expect that he'll get the similar level of production. The same is true for the 49ers. They've got a massive cluster injuries at the running back position, but you're also without Debo Samuel. So can Kyle Shanahan craft an offense that's going to be able to take advantage of the weaknesses of the Seattle Seahawks defense? The weaknesses tend to be on the perimeter. just throw it to any wide receiver and let them run down the field.

Exactly right. That's the weakness. But the problem is the 49ers are, especially with Jimmy G, they're a run-based team. They're one of the more run-heavy teams in the NFL. They don't have a lot of wide receivers that are throwing the ball down the field to. They're throwing the ball down the field primarily to your tight end George Kittle. And you're getting a lot of yak on these shorter passes to your wide receivers. That still could work against this Seahawks defense as bad as Seattle is.

but it's not really the traditional manner in which some of these teams are finding success and producing, like we saw the Dallas Cowboys back in week three, like we saw the Miami Dolphins in week four. Miami was throwing the ball. The wide receivers, they were just settling for field goals, right? But they were having productivity offensively, and we obviously saw how the Arizona Cardinals were able to come back and beat the Seahawks. So there is no doubt that the 49ers are capable of putting up points here. And I am definitely not going to second guess or doubt the fact that Kyle Shanahan knows how to attack these guys.

And he's not going to sit there with his fourth string running back and just call a ton of run plays into Seattle's number nine ranked run defense over and over and over again when he could be throwing the ball against their 30th ranked past defense. So I hope that he makes adjustments for your sake if you are betting the over and throws the ball a little bit more here. Jimmy G is healthier than what he was, you know, when he was missing time and he wasn't healthy. You know, he is looking a lot better right now. He looked fine against the Patriots last week.

He's had time for more therapy on that ankle. I think this game, I don't have a ton of value to the over, but from a matchup perspective, as bad as both these teams kind of want this game and get back on track for the Seahawks and make amends for some of those losses. neither of these teams in the NFC West can really afford to lose this game. So I expect a lot of creativity from Kyle Shanahan here. And I expect we're going to have to see the Seahawks step on the gas because if they take the foot off the gas on offense, then you're playing from behind because all opponents are

just scoring on them that will right now. Yeah, exactly right. It's why I hit on the Cardinals at plus 165 in that overtime. That's not the reason at all. That was just dumb luck. But anyway, my wagering wizards, my gambling gurus, he is sharp, he is Warren sharp, and he's out there giving out these teaching and teachable moments, these teachings in these teachable moments right on time and when you need them. It's a great week eight slate with a lot of

divisional play. I very much admire. We didn't even have to complain about the slate. We have four, uh, four o'clock games this week, Warren. to go along with a nice Sunday night game and a nice Monday night game, Eagles, Cowboys. That's hilarious. I can't wait. Until next week, Mr. Warren. Let's try and win some money. Let's do it. Good luck, house.

Thanks, buddy.